Leather & Bound Brings Community Into the Story in This Texas Town
How a Fantasy Bookstore Found Its Place in Fate, Texas.
Photography provided by Mo Reeves
In Fate, Texas, a small independent bookstore has taken on a role that extends far beyond retail. Leather & Bound Bookstore, founded by AJ Bell after her departure from a corporate career, serves a community that has often lacked spaces reflecting its interests and identities.
The store centers fantasy, storytelling and what Bell describes as its “dork side,” with a calendar that includes tabletop gaming nights, author signings and community events built around shared interests.
Shelves are curated by readers, gifts are sourced from independent creators and events are structured to bring together people who have not always found a sense of belonging in more conventional environments.
“We wanted everyone to feel at home when they entered our store,” Bell said. “And to understand that they can be themselves without labels.”
Bell told Hyvemind her relationship to books began in childhood. Growing up in Mexico, her access to literature was limited to school texts, library visits and short stories published in the fashion magazines her mother brought home. Those early encounters with storytelling stayed with her, shaping both her writing and the environment she would later build.
Today, Leather & Bound has become part of the rhythm of daily life in Fate, shaped as much by its community as by what’s on its shelves—one example of the kind of business at the center of Local Keepers, a Hyvemind series on the people behind the places that hold communities together.
Hyvemind: Hey AJ, welcome! Please Introduce yourself, tell us a bit about yourself and what inspired you to open Leather & Bound?
AJ Bell: Hi, I’m AJ, my kids and I own Leather & Bound. We are a dark academia-inspired independent bookstore coffee bar in Fate, Texas.
After 16.5 years of dedicating myself to grow my career in corporate america, the company I worked for let me go without a second thought. Being a single mother and the sole provider in our home I had to come up with a new concept that not only would eventually help provide for the children and I, but I also wanted it to not feel like a job.
As an independent author, books are a life-line for my soul, and the idea of owning a bookstore resurfaced after many years of being dormant.
In a nutshell, both inspiration and desperation led us to build Leather & Bound. It took almost a year and a half to build the dream, but has been absolutely worth it.
HM: Tell us a little about how you curate the space and what Leather & Bound offers beyond books?
AJB: We embrace our dork-side rather than chase the money. We see many businesses trying to do what we do but not having the same interest and passion behind it, or even trying to be part of the community. That’s not us.
We are dorks and proud. We play D&D, Lorcana, board games, and we are big into crafting and dressing up, etc.
That is the reason why hosting many of these evenings is a priority for us. It helps us find and connect with our people—and as much work as it is, we love it!
As an indie author, the need to open my space to others who have self-published their own works was there from the start. Hosting book signing allows these authors to connect with potential readers they would more than likely not have met otherwise.
I wanted to provide space not only for indie authors, but also for small creators to customize our sidelines.
Throughout the store, you can find unique gifts for book lovers, D&D players, or for those who love unique items that are not found in any big chain stores.
During every event we host, we try to highlight the small businesses that partner with us, so we are always innovating with each event in order to bring the spotlight to someone different.
HM: What role do you hope Leather & Bound plays in your customers’ lives beyond encouraging the love of reading?
AJB: We are a neuro-spicy household—OCD, ADHD, Autism—you name it.
We wanted Leather & Bound to be a safe place for every individual, whether it is a tired mom who just got 20 minutes to herself, an entrepreneur looking for a place to work away from home, a book dragon who loves the smell of books.
We also keep our space safe and open to neuro-spicy individuals and to those who lack safety and support at home!
Regardless of background and individual situations, we wanted everyone to feel at home when they entered our store, and to understand that they can be themselves without labels.
In our space, they are not just the mom, the worker, the husband or the wife. They are their own individual selves, and who they are beyond those labels matters.
HM: What have you learned about your community through running the bookstore?
AJB: It’s shown us that there’s a lack of spaces like ours, and people who don’t fit a specific mold are craving for a place where they belong.
There are many places to buy books; often, they’re cheaper than our retail prices.
But supporting a corporation that doesn’t know or care about the community it serves is the opposite of what we offer.
HM: How do community members find you?
Word of mouth and social media. We also attend events with our pop-up bookstore model, carry bookshelves, tables, and everything to decorate them with as well as plenty of merchandise to sell.
We meet our community in their turf, then invite them to come over and check us out at our next event. We always have something planned to invite them to attend.
HM: Can you talk about your own evolution and relationship to books, storytelling, creativity, and community?
AJB: I was five years old when I wrote my first poem. Having been born and raised in Mexico made access to books a challenge; other than our local library, which we walked to on weekends, the only other books we had access to were our academic ones. These had some good short stories.
As a matter of fact, it was a sonnet I read in middle school that stuck in my head for decades, and later inspired my books as an answer to the many questions that resulted from the sonnet, which left the story open-ended.
My mother used to buy a fashion magazine, and in it there were stories submitted by writers, one or two pages maximum, and they were fantasy, a little romance, adventure etc.
Those stories were the reason I always desired to read. I can only remember buying two books while still in Mexico: one indie poetry book and the other was a trad poetry book.
HM: Has there been a special defining moment when you realized your store was really making an important community impact?
AJB: Several! We love when people come through our doors and their mouths open wide in awe as they begin to take in everything around them.
And the moment they say something along the lines of “I’m home”, or “are we still in Fate?” then we know someone has found us.
However, perhaps the biggest accomplishment I have seen has been in my children, particularly my oldest, who is autistic and our Head Alchemist.
Seeing him develop from someone who was shy and didn’t want to talk, into someone who banters with our guests, tries to upsell to them, and offers recommendations from the recipes he helped create has been beyond rewarding.
I know he is safe here, I know he can continue to grow and I know that he is happy. That alone encourages me every day to leave my bed and come to “work.”
HM: What’s next for Leather & Bound?
AJB: While mostly complete, there are still more bookshelves to add to our store, and an upgrade to our hand-me-down furniture would be nice as well, and of course, the expansion of our menu to serve actual cocktails and adult beverages.
In the near future, we would love a second location, one where we can have a separate room to host more events without being limited by our space or small parking lot, and more bookshelves, lots and lots more bookshelves.
